


New Life

by Cali_se



Category: Sherlock (TV)
Genre: Angst, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, Ficlet, M/M, Post Reichenbach
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-10-25
Updated: 2012-10-25
Packaged: 2017-11-17 00:47:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 412
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/545673
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cali_se/pseuds/Cali_se
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>
  <i>The old life seemed like another world, one he thought had gone forever</i>
</p>
            </blockquote>





	New Life

**Author's Note:**

> Set post-The Reichenbach Fall (so possible spoilers for that episode).

John had never known anything quite like it. It was like being in physical pain, as though he'd been hit in the stomach, sent reeling, his eyes blinded by tears both shed and unshed.

The initial cruel, sharp sting of it slowly ebbed away, and then it began to feel like one's skin after a burn, sore to the touch and tender. Now and then a surge of intense pain came back, terrible and shocking, knocking him for six. Sometimes he cried and raged against the world. Sometimes he couldn't do anything at all.

He passed the days quietly, staying out of the limelight, away from the press. It became a kind of mission, this attempt to keep himself - and Sherlock - to himself: the two of them and what they'd had, locked away, safe and sound. In his mind. In his heart.

He spent the nights trying to sleep, sometimes succeeding, sometimes not. It didn't make any difference. Whenever he couldn't find rest, he made himself some tea, or something stronger, and sat alone at the kitchen table to think about Sherlock. When he did manage to fall asleep, the memory of his friend haunted him like a ghost in his dreams.

The old life seemed like another world, one he thought had gone forever. And a new world existed in its place: a world without Sherlock.

***

John wakes up sometime during the small hours, crying out, startled by a dream that had left Sherlock battered and bloody on the ground, really dead, really gone.

As he lies there trembling in the dim light, a calming hand rests against his shoulder and a voice cuts through the gloom, softly murmuring his name.

It takes a few seconds to come to, and then it feels as though he's been sent reeling all over again, only this time his eyes are blurred by tears of relief, not sorrow.

His vision clears, and the terror, pain and sadness disappear as Sherlock takes solid shape in the bed beside him - no longer a memory, a ghost or a dream, but a living, breathing man with lips that are begging to be kissed. Their mouths meet with a passion that takes John's breath away. He wraps his arms around Sherlock's slender frame, bringing their bodies close together, so close that he can feel his friend's heartbeat drumming against his own.

And the future starts then, a life John thought he'd never know again: a life with Sherlock.


End file.
